We're Still Fighting
by DetectiveInspectorSydney
Summary: How Luna and Xenophilius are coping since being reunited. Written for Round 3, Season 5 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.


Luna comes out her nightmare the way one drags oneself from the ocean. At high tide, you can be inches from dry land, and with each swell you are only pushed into the grating sand and forced to breathe salt water.

At high tide, it takes ages to struggle those last inches, you feel miles away, though you could just claw your fingers into the hot sand, if the ocean would let you go, or if someone saw you struggling.

Luna breaks consciousness hot, sweating, gasping, and disoriented. Her safety is not assured. On the other side of the room, Lord Voldemort is standing over Mr. Ollivander. His marble skin gleams in the lantern light, his raspy voice hisses insults, demands, accusations, and Mr. Ollivander screams and screams. The last time Luna heard a sound that awful was in the Department of Mysteries, after Sirius Black was murdered.

Finally enough oxygen is able to reach Luna's brain, and she registers the feeling of the sheets that she has twisted herself into. She looks up and the phantasmic shadows of her friends' portraits are swimming in and out of relative focus. She is home.

Luna buries her face in her pillow and weeps unceasingly. She is exhausted. She is so tired of the pain, the fear, the misery, the death, the haunting chill, she can never escape any of it. She wants to go downstairs and find daddy. Daddy used to hold her whenever she asked him too, no matter how busy he was, but now he's a shell of himself. He displayed the whole spectrum of emotions when he and Luna were reunited after the battle. He held her tightly, and it hurt so awfully, but she didn't tell him to stop. Since then, he has been a shell of himself. He might answer if she speaks to him. He might eat if she puts food in front of him. He might go outside if she makes him, but he does very little of his own accord, and unlike Luna, his nightmares are not silent.

She is awoken most nights to pitiful cries for mercy. She tried to wake him from a nightmare the first night they were home together, but he had punched her so hard she'd bruised a rib. She hasn't been able to tell anyone. The truth is she loves her father, but she's not brave enough to save him. She hasn't gone back to his room since, and this self-confession brings another wave of shame that only makes her cry harder.

After the better part of an hour, Luna has no more tears. The exhaustion is now bone deep, but her throat aches and her mouth is dry. Neville had once told her that muggles sometimes drink chamomile tea to ease their nerves. Luna had bought some and sent it to her father, and since then it had always been kept in the house. Luna hoped that the Death Eater's ransacking had not extended to their tea drawer, and so she shakily raises on to all fours, and nearly climbs down from her bed.

Her wand is on the night stand, never more than a few inches from her hand. With a deep breath she wordlessy conjures the image of a hare, her patronus. Her words to Harry at the battles echo back to her "We're all still here. We're still fighting." She tries to remember this as often as she can. Since the months of torture, since the battles and the loss of her friends, Luna has not been right. She can feel this, she is aware of this, but she has so very little control over her tenuous hold on her sanity.

The little rabbit hopping along beside as she descends the spiral staircase is one of the ways she tries not to float away. She thinks of Harry and the DA, of her mother, and helping her father with the Quibbler. Everyone always thought Luna was odd. She has always known that. The others would probably laugh if they could see the dullness that has descended upon her. Daddy is not the only empty shell in the house. The patronus grounds her, however briefly, to who she really is, her soul; and as hollow as she feels right now her hare lighting the way feels like a symbolic promise that she will get there.

Luna puts water in the kettle, and rummages through the cupboard and tea drawer. The Death Eaters apparently had had not interest in the Lovegoods' choices of beverage. The kettle whistles, and she rushes to remove it from the stove, praying it won't wake her father. She's lucky. She pours the mug with some milk, and directs her rabbit to lead her back up the stairs. She's on the first landing when she hear's the screaming. She grips her mug tightly, her shoulders hunching to keep out the sound, as her patronus disappears. Shaking she continues up the stairs, sipping her tea just for the sensory distraction. Falling back into bed, her wand and mug mug safely within reach, she still hears the screaming. She turns over, and places a pillow over head. Squeezing her eyes shut she waits for it to stop, the shame and fear of her earlier admission returning anew. "We're still fighting."; she repeats the mantra in her head. "We're still fighting."

 **A/N: That got dark and twisty. Thanks for hanging in there. This is for Round 3 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. My additional prompts this round were 2: (emotion) scared, 9: screaming, 14: rabbit. The story is a little over 900 words.**


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